WHAT IS IT?

Health Disparities Model #4: Effects of Segregation

This model builds upon Health Disparities Model #1: Effects of Environment. Model #1 illustrates the potential effects of the environment on health & uses real data from the District of Columbia to compare the environments on the West side (NW & SW) and the East side (NE & SE). This model includes two races (Pinks & Browns). On the West, about half the people are Pink & half are Brown. On the East side, about 15% of the people are Pink & 85% are Brown. These distributions mirror the distribution of Non-Hispanic Whites & Minorities in the 2010 Census. Rates of reproduction are used to maintain this distribution of Pinks & Browns on the two sides to illustrate the interaction of environment & segregation.

HOW IT WORKS

Environment: The red line divides the West & East sides of the map. Major parks (green) & highways (black) are mapped. US Census Bureau 2010 ZIP Code Business Patterns data are used to calculate the number of doctor offices (excluding mental health specialists), fitness centers, & supermarkets (grocery stores with 5+ employees) per 2,500 population on each side & plotted randomly on each side as doctor, bike, & building icons. Superfund sites are plotted randomly on each side as cow skulls.

People: Each turn, people move, reproduce, get sick, and recover (if sick) randomly. Moving on parks & highways, within 5 spaces of supermarkets & fitness centers, or within 2 spaces of doctor offices & superfund sites can affect health. To maintain the racial maldistribution of people between the East & West sides, half of new people born in the West are Pink and half are Brown while 15% of new people born in the East are Pink and 85% are Brown. When people get sick, they turn green, and when health reaches 0, they turn into ghosts which do not move.

Counters: These count the total # of people, # of sick people, % of people who are sick, # of dead people, & % of people who have died on each side (West & East) and of each race (Pink & Brown). The model stops if all people become ghosts or > 100 ghosts accrue on the map.

HOW TO USE IT

The starting # of Pink people, # of Brown people, rate of reproduction, rate of people getting sick, & rate of sick people recovering spontaneously can be set with the sliders on the left. The health effects of supermarkets, fitness centers, parks, superfund sites, highways, & doctor offices can be set positively or negatively with sliders on the right.

EXTENDING THE MODEL

Do you have 2 adjacent communities that you want to compare? Install NetLogo & edit the code to suit.

Under setup, map parks & highways as green & black patches.

Under setup-world, the numbers on the create- lines indicate the number of a specific item to map. ('Create-stores 3' means create 3 stores.) Edit these numbers to reflect the relative resources in your 2 communities. Also note that 'setxy random 20 random-pycor' places an item randomly on the East/Right side of the red line while 'setxy random -20 random-pycor' places an item randomly on the West/Left side.

The code to control the distribution of Pinks & Browns between the West & East sides look like this. Modify the "< N" to change the distributions.
if left? and random-float 100 < 50 [set color 36 set pink? false set brown? true]
if right? and random-float 100 < 85 [set color 36 set pink? false set brown? true]